Thursday, October 19, 2006

NO ONE talks peace while waging war better than Sri Lanka’s government and Tamil rebels. The two sides are due to meet in Geneva on October 28th and 29th, in the latest bid to end their 28-year conflict. They are meanwhile engaged in some of their fiercest fighting in years. More than 1,000 people have been killed since April. Some 220,000 have been displaced, mostly Tamils and Muslims in the north and east of the country, where the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are fighting for an independent homeland. This week, among other horrors, the Tigers conducted suicide bombings on navy targets, including one on a naval convoy near Habarana that killed nearly 100 sailors, and two on a base beside the southern tourist resort of Galle (see map). In response, government jets intensified a bombing campaign in the east of the country that has cost hundreds of civilian lives.It is fruitless to ask which side started the latest violence, which erupted in April in a dispute over control of water in the eastern district of Trincomalee. But it has conclusively ended a much-transgressed 2002 ceasefire. At present, neither side looks inclined to stop fighting. Both are rearming, with the government reported to be planning to double defence spending to 139.6 billion Sri Lankan rupees ($1.3 billion) next year. At best, the talks in Geneva may lower the temperature and lead to a more constructive round of dialogue. But there is a good chance that the two parties will merely use them to trade insults before an international audience and justify their military action.

The conflict intensified in July, after the Tigers closed a dam in Trincomalee, thereby denying water to 30,000 farmers, mostly of the Sinhalese majority. In a subsequent ground assault, the government recaptured a number of eastern towns, including Mutur and Sampur. In an apparent bid to chase away nosy foreign aid groups, government troops allegedly executed 17 employees of a French agency, Action Against Hunger. The army easily repulsed the Tigers’ counter-attack.

On October 11th the government launched a three-pronged offensive from the northern coastal towns of Muhamalai, Kilaly and Nagarkovil. Its aim was to clear the rebels from the northern Jaffna Peninsula and capture their headquarters at Kilinochchi, near the peninsula’s neck. But the government had miscalculated. The peninsula was heavily mined and easily defended by determined rebels. Government air strikes were limited by a fear of friendly fire. The assault crumbled, with an estimated 130 solders killed and more than 400 injured. Tanks and armoured personnel carriers were also lost in a serious defeat.

Frail hopes that this might coax the government to negotiate with its enemy were swiftly disappointed. Instead, it intensified its bombing in the east. On October 16th President Mahinda Rajapakse told a special envoy from Japan, Yasushi Akashi, that he would escalate the war again if his troops were attacked. Mr Rajapakse’s lack of enthusiasm for foreign peacemakers and their suggested compromises is well known. He won power last year after taking a hard line against a more conciliatory candidate, Ranil Wickremesinghe, formerly the country’s prime minister.

Mr Rajapakse exploited a Sinhalese fear that the federalism Mr Wickremesinghe championed was a prelude to splitting the country. The rebel leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, approved of Mr Rajapakse’s bellicosity; he had also had enough of foreign peace efforts. Thus he prevented pro-Wickremesinghe Tamils from voting, ensuring Mr Rajapakse’s election. Given that the recent fighting is what both government and rebels want, the chances of ending it are thin.